Recoil II - Issues when on battery power (Resolved)

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kizcat

Active member
Good Day/Night

Unfortunatly I am not having the smoothest experiance with my Recoil II post production and post RMA.

I have encountered an issue which greatly affects the laptops performance.
Whilst plugged in, the laptop performs as expected, good frame rates in games, handles multuple applications with ease, good control of heat levels. Generally a smooth flawless experiance.

My issues occur when the laptop unplugged and on battery power only.
I have now had 3 instances where the laptop has just turned off unexpectedly as if the power has cut out. The first time I didn't think much of it, as when I turned it back on a windows update occured, so I assumed there had been a countdown in the background I had missed (because I was in a full screen game) It didn't occur to me there haddn't been a shutdown screen. The next attempt happened today, I started up a game, got to the end of the loading screen and it just cut out, again like a power cut.

I then repeated the exact same sequence of events, launching the game, same background programs open, but with it plugged in. No Issue.
Unplugged the laptop, restarted, and repeated the same sequence under battery power. Power cut out.
I then repeated the same sequence plugged in again. No issue.

The only thing I can find in my power settings that is different, is that cooling on battery power is passive, where as plugged in is set to active.
I repeated the test once more, and found with cooling set to active, under battery power.
The sudden power loss doesn't seem to occur. (On multiple attempts). And I don't seem to have any heat issues whilst on either passive or active cooling.

However. I have noticed a significant difference in performance between the laptop being plugged in and unplugged. I expect there to be a loss of performance obviously, but not to the extent that the mouse appears to 'lag' accross the desktop. I drop to 7fps(battery) in a game where I had previously had 60+(plugged in).

What I have noticed is that my CPU speed drops. I do not know or understand the cause of this. Is it a setting I have missed? Is there a fault with the unit? Is this meant to happen with the newer CPUs?
Again, I know performance will take a hit on battery power. But my basis for comparisson here is to my previously laptop, an Optimus V, from PC Specialist. Where on battery my CPU never used to drop from a clock speed of 2.2ghz to ~800mhz, which is what seems to be happening now.

My partner also has a Recoil II of the same spec, and has not encountered this issue that I am aware of. However she doesn't really put it under load and has not tried any games with it unplugged. (I hope to be able to repeat the above sequence similarly on her laptop to see if it happens to hers as well)

Any help here would be hugely appreciated.
I've attached a couple of pictures of the CPU clock when the laptop unplugged (picture 1) and plugged in (picture 2) (This is whilst it is more or less idle)
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Current spec:
Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 - 6.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SSD 660p Series Up to 1800 read/write speed
2nd M.2 SSD Drive
None.
Storage Drive
2TB Seagate 5400rpm
 
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kizcat

Active member
Quick addition to this. Again this morning I have unplugged my laptop, started a game and the power has just cut out. (for a 4th time now)
This time with active cooling on the power plan.
Similar thing happened. CPU dropped to ~800MHz. The multiplier seems to get stuck on x8.
Still no issue with heat generations. fans spin up as normal (both plugged in and unplugged) so i'm confident it isn't a heat issue.

This issue does not occur on my partners Recoil II (same spec). She is using the same power plan and has the same settings in it.
I've attached a short video to illustrate what I mean. This was while the laptop was unplugged. Whilst plugged in, this issue does not happen. and there was about half charge in the battery. Following this cut out, I restarted it on battery power. So charge wasn't an issue here either.

Edit: I have just spoken to PC Specialist and directed them to this thread. Laptop will be RMAd again.
 
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sonik14

Member
I had the exact same issue with you. I have tried all that you did. What I realised is that while being on battery mode, if you use a competitive task the machine does not understand when it has to split it from intergrated gpu to nvidia. It does it successfully when on ac, but it fails when on battery mode (even when playing a movie in vlc or in browser). It solved it for me temporarily if you change to give priority to nvidia in game center. Then I was getting more often the sudden cut out issues.

Thanks for your post, because it will help me to explain them the problem, after I return from my travel.
 
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oliver_s

New member
Very similar issues here, except I have a Defiance series laptop (approx 3 weeks old). If plugged in, everything is good.

On battery, everything is OK *if* I use the Control Center (v3.0) software and set the mode to "Performance", but if I select a different mode such as "Power Saving" I quickly get either a power off, or occasionally a BSOD. It's not clear exactly what the different modes do, but perhaps Performance always uses the Nvidia card, which would support SONIK14's theory?

I'd like to get this sorted as I frequently use the laptop on battery for less demanding tasks, but leaving it in Performance mode reduces battery life to approx 1.5hrs (obviously nowhere near the claimed max of 5hrs..!)
 
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kizcat

Active member
Quick update, and also to add an addition to the thread for PC Specialist.

I have my laptop back following the last RMA with the issue above, and have been playing games on it with no issue, whilst it was plugged in.

Rather frustratingly, I tried to play a game this morning, on battery power, only to find the issue remains unresolved with the CPU locking at x8 with reduced voltage, and the power cutting suddenly still.

All settings are set for high performance/gaming. Windows 10 battery saver is off (low battery notifications are still active as a warning to myself). Except for Nvidia which is set to cap the frames at 30 on battery.

**Video to follow once uploaded for PC Specialist Tech Support to see**
Quick description of what is happening in the video.
I have not long turned the laptop on, as you can see the CPU clock in reasonable, temps are fine, laptop has a reasonable amount of battery to last a short period of time. I then unplug the laptop, in which you can see the CPU clock speed drop and multiplier drop and stay at x8. I then load the game Stellaris (which displays a sudden closure message from a few minutes before). Once in game the power then promptly cuts and the laptop abruptly turns off. I then turn the laptop back on, whilst it remains unplugged to ensure the battery wasn't depleted.


I am getting frustrated now as the issue isn't resolved and i'm fairly certain this will mean another RMA.
Whilst I am awaiting a response from PC Specialist, any there any suggestions from the community as to what the issue might be?
(It was initially thought to be the battery, which was replaced before being stress tested and then returned)

I would like to add that this issue isn't isolated to one game, it has happened with Stellaris, Sea of Thieves, Star Trek Online and 7Days2Die. Not exactly the most intense games in the world. Three of those I could play quite comfortably on my previous laptop, an Optimus V, on battery, without any issues. Only reason I couldn't play Sea of Thieves is because it's windows 10/xbox only.
 
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kizcat

Active member
I might have been jumping the gun a bit thinking the CPU was being the issue there... I think sonik14 might have hit the nail on the head.

sonik14 said:
I had the exact same issue with you. I have tried all that you did. What I realised is that while being on battery mode, if you use a competitive task the machine does not understand when it has to split it from intergrated gpu to nvidia. It does it successfully when on ac, but it fails when on battery mode (even when playing a movie in vlc or in browser). It solved it for me temporarily if you change to give priority to nvidia in game center. Then I was getting more often the sudden cut out issues.

Thanks for your post, because it will help me to explain them the problem, after I return from my travel.
Click to expand...

I re-read this quote, (on battery power) opened up firefox and watched a video on youtube. Noticed firefox runs on the iGPU. Closed firefox. Opened Nvidia Control Panel and changed the GPU priority for firefox to the Nvidia GPU. Re-opened firefox. Noticed it was now running on the dGPU. Watched the same video. Instant power cut out.

I think the issue might be to do with the dGPU. I'm not eager to keep trying to replicate this issue, but thought it was worth noting as it could help resolve the issue.

Never mind, the issue persists when just using the iGPU for gaming on battery...
 
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oliver_s

New member
I realise my issue might not be exactly the same as the OP's, but I have a stable system now.

I'm not 100% sure what fixed it, but it was either:
- doing a full uninstall of my existing Nvidia drivers and a clean install of the latest from nvidia.com
or (and this seems more likely to me)
- removing and re-installing the supplied Clevo Control Center software. I'm now using ControlCenter 3.0 v1.12.0 which I obtained from https://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_down.asp?lang=en (Model in my case was P9x0ED)

I can now get 4+ hrs battery life on "power saving mode" and I haven't had a crash/power cut since.
 
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kizcat

Active member
I sent the laptop back under RMA and have had it back probably about a month now with the issue resolved.
It turned out to be a hardware issue with the motherboard having a power delivery problem and my power cable had burnt out. Both were replaced and I have not had a re-occurrence of that issue.

I would say it is worth phoning them and explaining the issue, although it will likely end up with an RMA to resolve it.

I now have a new issue though - although it appears to be software related... I hope. (new thread incoming)
 
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sonik14

Member
My problem seems to be resolved with RMA too. I think we faced the same issue. I have just got my new laptop and I have faced no issue so far.
 
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